Previously: Traumaland learned that a “cat” is a type of whip, and we all got a shared Questionable Google Search of the Day. Grey revealed his big not-secret that he likes to beat up girls who look like his mother, asked Ana to marry him, and revealed that he bathed his ex-girlfriend in Ana’s apartment and gave GSP some of Ana’s clothes.
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Sweeney: The chapter begins with more of Ana’s tears from the end of the last chapter. You know what we should recap? The Gossip Girl books. There was a perfume called Serena’s Tears in the books, which should give you a vague idea of the LOL factor. Ana’s Tears, the perfume, would smell like a dress worn every single day for two consecutive weeks. Covered in jizz. Instant best seller.
Lorraine: Probably as a weight loss tool, because just that description makes it unlikely that I’m going to eat today. Thanks, Sweeney!
Sweeney: You’re welcome. I’m Too Disgusted To Eat Ever Again Diet for everyone!
She wakes up in the middle of the night with a headache, which I think is really only fair, for all the headaches she’s caused us. Ana goes to the kitchen in search of painkillers (which she should share with us) and describes it in excessive detail, as per usual. She uses this opportunity to babble about how she’s dealing with the events of the previous chapter, namely the proposal and the non-secret. She asks herself if she can live in that apartment with all of its murderapist history, as if the apartment is the problem rather than the murderapist.
Lor: Two things that I am way too amused by: (1) the reappearance of orange juice and (2) “My lips quirk up with irony. Christian Grey, expect the unexpected- Fifty Shades of Fucked-Up. My smile fades. I look like his mother.”
MY SMILE GOT WIDER BECAUSE, LOL. YOU LOOK LIKE HIS MOM. It’s still hilarious.
Sweeney: TRULY.
This chapter, I should also add, needs a “Fifty” count because she uses it a lot in all its forms “Fifty Shades of Fuckedupness” and of course that lovable “Fifty” for short. Instead of a count, we’ll just bring this back for the millionth time, so that you understand how we get through these books:
The monologue is thankfully interrupted by a scream from Christian Grey who had an awful nightmare. As Ana returned to the bedroom he mumbles that she must have left, causing his nightmares to come back.
Lor: When she runs into the room, she “flip[s] one of the light switches, and Christian’s bedside light comes to life.” No one pays attention to this animated franken-light, though, which makes me sad. I’m pretty sure if your lamps came to life, a nightmare would really be the least of your worries.
Sweeney: There’s an awesome asofterworld comic (?) that says, “Every statue in town came to life, but they’d been watching long enough to know better than to ever move.” I can only assume that this is what’s going on with the lamp. Also, this:
ANYWAY, our latest round of YOU CAN NEVER LEAVE EVER NOT EVEN TO GET A DRINK OF WATER OR PEE automatically leads to sex, because of reasons.
Ana cuts it off because she remembers that whole, “You fuck me because I look like your mother,” conversation and it skeeves her out. Fair, I guess, except for all the other things that haven’t skeeved her out up to now. Like tampon removal.
Lor: But. It adds a new layer of skeeve to all the things that were already skeevy. Removing a tampon: EW. Removing the tampon from a girl you picked specifically because she looks like your dead mom: WHAT IS THIS?
See?
Sweeney: I do see; thanks for making sure we really drove home that gagtastic line of thinking!
He keeps going even after she says no and that she can’t do this. So she says, “No, please. I can’t do this, not now. I need some time, please.” His response? “’Oh, Ana, don’t overthink this,’ he whispers as he nips my earlobe.” We have a whole tag on this blog for this. It’s called, “THAT’S RAPE ASSHOLE.” Sweet Valley High has the earliest entries but it should surprise no one that clicking that link will bring up a lot of Fifty Shades covers.
But Ana’s all, “LOL KAY.” And stops fighting it, probably due to the many previous examples of similar/worse scenarios. Why? Because he wants her to touch him while they fuck! Which, ZOMG ROMANCE! We’ve already discussed the fact that she absolutely does touch him in much of the sex they have, because, you know, that’s necessary, but now he’s letting her touch him in the Crayola Body Mapping no-go zone, and running her hands through his chest hair is like the most romantical thing she’s ever experienced.
Lor: It’s kind of hilarious to me that we often skip over much of these sex scenes. I want you to rest assured that it isn’t because they aren’t terrible. They are, but they are also super repetitive and often not worth mentioning at all. That all said, this cracked me up:
“His hand travels south, over my belly, down to my sex- and his fingers are on me, then in me. I groan as he moves his fingers around inside me, in that way, and I push my pelvis up to welcome his touch.”
IN THAT WAY. James has used this phrase exclusively to describe how Grey’s pants hang off his hips and now, here it is. He’s fingering her in the way he hangs his pants off his hips? HOKAY.
Sweeney: He stops before putting the condom on and tells her that she can still say no, and always can. I laugh because, you know, she already did multiple times a few paragraphs ago and that didn’t stop him, so whatever. She doesn’t, of course, because he waits until after he goes down on her to be serious about his, “Well, you can say no,” bullshit.
Lor: She doesn’t say no but her form of consent is OMG HURRY UP BEFORE I HAVE A CHANCE TO THINK ABOUT IT. I shit you not.
Additionally, we see how bullshit “no” is to Grey when during sex he commands Ana to orgasm and she says no. See, her head is “cloudy” with the fact that she looks like his mom, and can’t really get to the orgasming point. Grey doesn’t take this as an answer, though, and fucks her into submission because all their sex has to end with them coming together, like synchronized swimmers, or something.
Sweeney: It’s another one of their magical powers.
After sex, we are treated to yet another, “DON’T EVER LEAVE ME!” from Christian Grey. We need to include a full book count on that phrase when we do our end-of-book post, because it happens in almost every chapter, usually more than once.
But then! Ana asks about his nightmare, which means it’s Crack Whore Story Time! I love Crack Whore Story Time, mostly because I love how he seriously tells stories with the words “the crack whore.” In this nightmare the crack whore’s pimp was abusing his toddler self and the crack whore wasn’t stopping it. This makes me really sad now that I type it out.
Lor: HURRY. MOVE ON.
Sweeney: Grey appeases Ana’s earlier squick factor by assuring her that she’s not actually like the crack whore, which I guess makes everything all better, because that’s how things work in this book. Ana asks for permission to talk to Dr. Flynn, and Grey actually agrees, though he doesn’t say how much Flynn will be allowed to tell her. Grey also repeats the marriage proposal, now with mention of kids because OMG THEY’RE GOING TO PROCREATE, AREN’T THEY? WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY.
Lor: His renewed proposal also includes, “let’s get married and we can get to know each other then.” This is like that one time Ana got dressed in this order: shoes, dress, cooter balls. BACKWARDS, ANA. BACKWARDS.
Sweeney: They go back to sleep. Ana wakes up at 8:45 and panics because she’ll be late for work. While she gets ready they exchange stupid banter about that hilarious time when Grey bought her company. The Red Ranger is going to take Ana to work and Grey is staying in bed that morning because he can, even though that’s totes not like him, according to Ana.
Lor:
“He gives me his devastating, lopsided, one hundred and fity percent panty-busting smile.”
I’ve heard “panty-dropper” but I’m not sure about panty-busting. That sounds like it involves combustion and I prefer to keep sudden fires away from my panties.
Sweeney: Word. That just sounds uncomfortable. Remember when he just disintegrated her underwear? That seems safer.
When Ana gets to work Jack is in a bad mood and he’s mad at her for being 15 minutes late and orders her to, you know, do her job. Naturally, the first thing she does at her desk is start emailing Grey. He gets mad at her too, because he wants her to use her Blackberry and not her company computer and not only does she ignore that, she mentions Flynn in one of the emails. (That mention, by the way, is to tell him that she’s got to talk to Flynn before she’ll answer his marriage proposal.)
Lor: I’m not understanding the Blackberry thing. Presumably, it’s less about using her company computer and more about not using her work email, right? SO WHY DOES HE KEEP EMAILING HER THERE? “Hey, I emailed you at this email address to tell you not to email me from this email address.”
Sweeney: YUP! It’s absolutely about the email address because he ends every exchange with some bullshit about wiping the company servers. (I skip it to spare GEEK RAGE at the tech knowledge fail going on here.)
She gets out her Blackberry just as Josecob is calling her. He wants to come deliver the pictures of Ana that Grey bought and also maybe crash at her place when he comes to town. Ana says she’ll talk to Grey and get back to him, and as she hangs up she realizes that she’s a terrible friend. It’s rare that she can be self-aware like that, because yes, she is an awful, awful friend.
Jack yells at her from his office because she still hasn’t typed up the thing he asked her to type up when she first came in, due to all the emailing her boyfriend and chatting with her almost rapist/friend. She brings the letter in and Ana tries to paint Jack as the bad guy for getting mad that it has errors in it. It only had two errors, y’all! Hey, I guess this is news to you, but checking for that kind of thing is actually part of your job, which you should do sometimes. I mean, not all the time, but at least sometimes at work you should check in and actually do your job. Just a suggestion. Hilariously, Jack asks, “I don’t know what you’re doing out there, but I’m paying you to work.”
She gets more angry orders and while she’s actually doing her job Ethan calls about coming to get the apartment key from her, and Jack is watching her when she hangs up. Jack gets mad again when she goes to reception to give Ethan the key, but then sends her off to get his lunch, which is fair game Blackberry checking time. I have to agree on that point, even if I don’t want to read more Ana/Grey emails.
He sent her three separate emails, missing her, chastising her for not being discrete with the work emails, and then anxious and offering to send The Red Ranger over because she hasn’t responded to the previous emails and also because he is crazy.
She calls him and the receptionist had already been instructed to interrupt Grey’s meeting if she calls, because again he is crazy.
Lor: She tells Grey’s receptionist to convey the message that “Ana called,” and the receptionist responds, “Ana? As in Anastasia Steele?” Ana: “Er… Yes.” Her question confuses me.
The receptionist asks if she is Anastasia Steele AND IT CONFUSES HER.
Sweeney: Also, he was concerned that the previous chapter’s non-secret would make her leave. Pointless phone call: more warnings about Jack and Ana promises to email Grey (from her Blackberry) when she needs to get picked up, since she didn’t drive.
Lor: Also, he guesses that she’s biting her lip. He says it’s because he knows her and I say it’s because either (1) you probably sound stupid if you are talking on the phone WHILE BITING YOUR LIP and (2) if you guess Ana is biting her lip you have a 9 in 10 chance you are absofuckinglutely right at any given moment.
Sweeney: When she returns to the office with Jack’s lunch, he’s still pissy. When she tries to ask him about it, he basically says that she sucks at her job and she goes off to take her lunch in sadness. Obviously her lunch of sadness is about Grey, not Jack, and her big decision and more stupid rambling about how she loves him and won’t ever leave him ever ever ever. In her annoying musing about this she thinks, “It’s been an education knowing him,” and I would agree with that Ana, but not a good education.
She goes on to talk about how he’s such a good person in spite of, you know, not at all being a good person and how he just needs her unconditional love and then everything will be all better. Because that’s how abusive relationships work, everyone. If you just love him enough, he’ll be all better! That’s a really great message, thanks E. L. James!
Ana also decides that it’s not really such a big deal that he gave his ex-girlfriend a bath in her apartment, though she does wonder which clothes he gave away and hopes it didn’t include the plum dress because she liked that one. Which is hilarious because (1) it’s not actually hers -and- (2) yes, Ana, we know. We know.
She goes back to work late because she’s so lost in her annoying thoughts. Jack yells at her some more and Mia calls because she’s bored and decided to plan Grey’s birthday, which Ana apparently didn’t know about. She’s thinking about marrying him and doesn’t know his birthday? OK. Good idea. I’m sure that will work out well.
Mia invites Ana to the family dinner they’re doing for him on Saturday and they make plans for the two of them to go to lunch the next day, while Jack is in New York.
We are then treated to several pages of seriously pointless emails before the work day and the chapter are finally almost over. At 6:15 (she has to stay until 6:30 when Jack leaves for the airport) Ana realizes that she hasn’t eaten all day because apparently she was also too lost in thought about Grey to eat earlier? I neither understand nor care. She goes into the kitchen to raid the cookie jar and is shortly followed by Jack, who tells her that now is a good time to discuss her misdemeanors, as per the earlier conversation, and smarms about having her all alone.
The chapter ends with Jack saying, “Now . . . are you going to be a good girl and listen very carefully to what I say?” basically implying that we’re about to have another attempted rape scene, but this will fall into the Bad Rape category, unlike all the Good Rape that happens with Grey, I guess.
Murmur Count – 11
Whisper Count – 7
Bonus: Fifty Count – 9
Favorite comment last post: Basically ever single “CAT? HUH?” comment. Seriously, if you didn’t read the comments on the last post, you’ve missed half the experience, and I can’t choose just one because they are a magical collective. Also, this: “I think you should sum up every single post with “This bitch. This stupid bitch.” Every single action that Ana makes, and for that matter Christian, makes me think those same 5 words. Especially powerfully appropriate after the whole cheese debacle. This bitch. These stupid bitches.” – Katherine Chesley
Next time on Fifty Shades Darker: It’s a chapter full of sex. We are so sorry and mostly for ourselves in chapter 16.
Nicole is the co-captain of Snark Squad and these days she spends most of her time editing podcasts. She spends too much time on Twitter and very occasionally vlogs and blogs. In her day job she's a producer, editor, director, and sometimes host of educational YouTube channels. She loves travel, maps, panda gifs, and semicolons. Writing biographies stresses her out; she crowd sourced this one years ago and has been using a version of it ever since. She would like to thank Twitter for their help.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
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